What are your favorite cheap foods?

[Shibathedog]

Lately I've been on a money saving rampage, and I noticed one of the best ways to save money is by changing the foods you eat. So I was wondering what are your favorite cheap foods? I'll get some out of the way I have discovered/are obvious.

 

Ramen: Screw Ramen, you can't live off that.

 

Noodles/Shells/Spaghetti: A box of this and a jar of sauce is cheap as hell and pretty good for you or at least way better than ramen. You can save even more money by making your own sauce. Making sauce is extremely easy too.

 

Mac and Cheese: Very cheap, often on sale too, but I found I got sick of it real fast.

 

Soup: Pretty good depending on what you get, Most soups don't fill me up very well (standard campbells is mostly water) but if you look you can find soups with more in them. Some are a ripoff though so you have to be careful.

 

Lunch Meats: For sandwiches, bread is usually also cheap

 

Hotdogs: I love hotdogs, you can make them on the stove, on a grill, or even in the microwave if your feeling lazy. Don't buy ripoff hotdog buns you can't use for anything else, use the bread from the sandwiches!

 

Chili: Just get some cans of meat only/meat and beans chili and add your own vegetables and stuff, much cheaper that way and tastes better.

 

Salad: Even if you buy pre-made salad this is pretty cheap, I like to make my own though because the pre-made ones are more expensive and tend to have too much lettuce/not enough anything else. That reminds me, you can use most of the ingredients for salad on sandwiches as well.

 

Cereal: This should be obvious, not sure what to say about it besides buy off-brand, its the same damn thing. You can get those huge bags of offbrand for the same price as a small box of name brand.

 

Eggs: Pretty obvious

 

Hamburger Helper: Cheap and easy, you can use leftover meat for hamburgers again using the bread from before!

 

Bags of chicken nuggets: Not that cheap, but a pretty good deal and easy to make/tastes good. Dip them in ketchup or bbq sauce or something.

 

Burritos: I can get good ass burritos at the store here for 50 cents each. Can't beat that.

 

Tuna: Used to be a lot cheaper but went up in price, I still get it sometimes though. I can just eat this right out of the can because I love tuna.

 

Frozen Pizza: Usually on sale here, makes things easy when more than 1 person is eating. You could always just eat the rest later though. Personally I like cold pizza and won't even bother to warm it up again so it gives me something ready to eat for a quick snack later.

 

Drink Mixes: Water is best, but sometimes I need something flavored. I get a lot of gatorade mix but I'm thinking about switching to store brand. It's not as bad as soda. Just stay away from the smaller quantities or the individual 1 per water bottle packets. They are a ripoff.

 

Pretzels: Way cheaper than chips/other snack foods and surprisingly filling, or maybe that's just because once I start eating them I can't stop.

 

Tea: Tea is ridiculously cheap, especially if you bulk order online, you can get a pound of tea for around 3 bucks. Even the fancier teas are only like 9 bucks a pound. That stuff they sell in bags at the store is an extreme ripoff.

 

Fruit: I just eat fruit all the time, I don't really put it in much, I should start making smoothies or something.

[Inky]

I eat all the stuff you listed. I'd add go to the 99 cent store. alot of times you can get good food there. the one near me even sells fruits, veggies and frozen food.

if I am lazy I will go to wendy's and get the 99 cent double stack cheeseburger. 2 of those fill me up pretty good.

I make a lot of iced coffee. way cheaper then going to starbucks or whatever.

 

the main money saps for me is soda, beer and cigarettes. I started smoking native tobacco though so my cigarette bill is cut in half.

[Krosigrim]

Well I cannot eat ramen. I have had so much of it! To hell with ramen.

 

I dislike Mac 'n Cheese. I used to eat it all the time. I cannot eat it straight up, its too... bare. It's eating noodles with flavoring. But add hamburger meat and BAM! It instantly transforms into something good.

 

Fruit is great but expensive. Worth the money though as its good for you.

 

There is a mart 1/2 mile from me. They have good ass ground beef for CHEAP! I know my meat. At least when I eat it I can tell you if it's quality... ya know. And this stuff is the real deal. But they have more than just a great price on beef, everything is pretty cheap. It's cool, they have weird foods from all over the world. Practically by region. Ya got your Asian style food, and your spanish style food. My sister picked up some frozen mucci (mushi?) Yea the exterior is rubbery. Id recommend it to any American who hasn't tried it. Hehehe 'cause theres a ton of shit I'm not trying at this store.

 

I can't believe what some people eat though. Anyway, on topic... Yea I love the cheap ass bags of cereal. I used to talk so much shit about them, but one day I bought the Cinnamon Toast ripoff... IT WAS THE SAME DAMN CERIAL!!! Imagine my surprise... I still make fun of them though, they have absurd names. Pretty much, making your food as opposed to buying it prepared is the way to go for value. But if something is on sale, I'll give it a look. But I ALWAYS go to the icecream isle as they seem to run deals on it 'cause it'll go bad due to no one buying enough. I love BOGO Ice cream. And fortunately it's always the good shit, none of that bs. but... if on sale I might give it a try.

[The-Ice-Man]

I like food in tins. Pour on plate, heat in microwave and eat. Slowly die inside from all the preservatives.

[KyokugenKiss]

as a chef, i try to never step my food game down

[Shibathedog]

as a chef, i try to never step my food game down

 

Well I'm not saying this is all I eat, it's just what I eat when I'm trying to save money. I love to cook unfortunately I can't cook anything that isn't on a grill which is why I have the woman lol. That's why I've been obsessing over this george foreman grill I have now, you can make so much stuff on it with ease!

 

Krosigrim: That's very lucky that you have a cultural market that is a good deal. Those places around here charge ridiculous prices. I love trying new foods and I usually end up liking them no matter how weird. In fact I'll eat just about anything. The last thing I tried that I didn't like was years ago and it was swordfish. Too tough and not enough taste. I had it in sushi so maybe it would be better grilled or something.

 

Oh one more thing I should add. Meijer! I don't know if you guys have Meijer around but they are great for saving money. They always have at least one brand of everything on sale and the best part is the Meijer brand is actually very good. See when you go to Kroger or Wal-mart, the in house brands tend to be crap or just barely good enough, but Meijer brand is quality so I don't hesitate to buy it. We also have Remke around here but the store brand there, Best Choice, is SO BAD. It is easily the worst out of all the stores, everything they sell is a ripoff too. I've seen things cost an entire extra dollar+ there which adds up quickly when your getting more than just one thing. They have pretty decent sales though. I picked up a loaf of bread for 70 cents there yesterday.

[Explosive Misanthropy]

one dollar double cheese burgers from burger king.

[Smilee]

Being a college student, I don't have much time to think about anteing up my cooking skills. So far I've eaten most of the things you've listed. Recently however rice and meat has been going well.

[Weirdy]

ground beef

 

sure it's mostly fat and cow labia, but it still fills me up

 

nothing like making some big ass burgers on a foreman grill

[emsley]

Sorry guys Im a food snob I only buy the best - If I buy cheap crap I know im eating cheap crap -

 

As far as cheap goes though :

 

Double cheese burger from McDonalds at 1.29 are good.

I also like bombay bad boy pot noodles they are normaly a quid!

[Rag]

Tuna, Cottage Cheese, Yogurt.

 

All relatively cheap, packed with protein, and good for you.